Option # 3: No ban, or extremely limited ban on compounds
proven to cause harm.For example ban only those chlorine containing compounds
which have been proven to harm the environment or toxic to humans
and animals i.e. DDT, PCB's

For this issue debate, you may self select the position
that you would like to promote.

INTRODUCTION:

Chlorine in the elemental state is is pale green poisonous
gas. In various other forms it is present in the ocean water,
in common table salt, highway salt to melt ice, in bleach, and
as a disinfectant in drinking water. Chloride ions or chlorine
as the element is used in the manufacture of a wide variety of
industrial compounds including 85 percent of all pharmaceuticals,
96 percent of all agricultural pesticides and herbicides, and
a wide range of plastic type materials including PVC pipe. It
is also used in the bleaching of wood pulp to make paper.

A group of chemicals called organochlorines-substances that
contain chlorine and carbon that is at the heart of the chlorine
controversy. They include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins,
the now-banned pesticide DDT and others that are tough to destroy
and are known or believed to be highly toxic. Over the years,
they have been released into the environment through such sources
as industrial effluents and smokestack emissions, discharges that
in many cases are now reduced or banned. The organochlorine compounds
are not readily degraded in the environment and persist many years.
In the Great Lakes region, PCBs and other chlorinated compounds
have been found in very small amounts. However through a process
of biomagnification, the organochlorine compounds concentrate
in the fats of fish as they move up the food chain. The result
is that the Great Lakes states issue advisories on the size and
quantity of lake fish that are safe to eat. And yet scientific
evidence that PCBs, for instance, cause human cancer or impair
development in infancy and childhood has yet to be proven conclusive.
There is a high degree of concern for the health effects of a
organochlorine compound called dioxin. Dioxin is produced from
a variety of sources involving the combustion or incineration
of a wide variety of materials. Much research has tried to establish
the health effects of this compound including birth defects, cancer,
and endocrine disrupters,

International Joint Commission, a quasi-governmental board
that oversees cleanup efforts on the Great Lakes recently reiterated
its two-year-old call for phasing out the use of chlorine and
chlorine-containing compounds. That followed a call by the Clinton
administration for a 30 month study of chlorine's uses and potential
health effects that could lead to a plan to "substitute,
reduce or prohibit the use of chlorine and chlorinated compounds."

The chemical industry vigorously, even vehemently disagrees
with that analysis. About half of all commercial chemistry involves
chlorine, worth an estimated $70 billion annually in sales. So
phasing out chlorine would be not only costly and uncertain, in
the industry's view, but also unnecessary."The science does
not justify this wholesale ban or phase-out of chlorine,"
said Jeffrey Van, spokesman for the Chemical Manufacturers Association,
the industry's Washington-based trade group. "Not all environmental
risks are alike. Some are larger than others. Some, indeed, are
mythical."

In this century, as the number and type of chemicals used by
industry have exploded, chlorine has become an increasingly integral
part of the business because it is a highly reactive element that
readily combines with a wide range of other elements.
"You do not have to put in a lot of energy to make it work,"
said Joe Garlich, a researcher at Dow Chemical Co., the world's
largest producer of chlorine. "You don't have to do a lot
of exotic manipulations. The idea of the chemistry industry is
to take simple building blocks and use them like an architect
to build something that has a use."

Canadian
Chlorine Coordinating Council.
Advocates a limited chlorine phase out. Check out the references
in the section Science and methods that industry has used to
reduce chlorine in the section Case Studies.